Written by

Amy Skelton

A few years ago, I got to know a farmer who had been a conventional hog producer growing thousands of animals a year, packed into his barns in a way he knew was wrong. The pork prices swung wildly and he constantly fretted about whether he was going to make it.

One day, in a fit of financial desperation, he threw some frozen pork into a cooler and headed to a farmers market. There, he sold several hundred dollars worth, enough to pay the grocery and gas bills that week, and he said he felt the tension just slide away while he was there talking with customers.

Three years later, he has transformed his farm. He sold his animals keeping just 100 pigs and adding chickens and turkeys. He moved all his animals outside onto grass and into the sunshine. He stopped feeding them the antibiotics he was forced to feed to keep his packed in herd healthy. Now he grills sausage samples at three different farmers markets weekly, his son built the farm a website for customers to order his pasture raised meats, and his farm has been transformed into a financially sound, wholesome business that includes his whole family, and of which he is proud.

I love this story because it highlights many reasons why supporting local farmers is important. This is a farm that was about to go under and was saved by selling locally. Itís also a farm that had been producing meat for the commodity market, forced to raise animals in a very unhealthy way in order to keep costs to a minimum. Itís also a story about a farmer whose life was made much richer when he focused on growing food for his community. And in the end, itís a story about a farm that prevailed.

In the past decades farms have seen the price they receive for their products fall ó in particular dairy ó while the cost of living continues to increase. And every year we lose some of our farms. But some are changing gears, moving to a different model. We are lucky to also be experiencing the growth of new farms, nearly all of them intending to sell more directly, throughcommunity supported agriculture shares, farmers markets, or direct to restaurants.

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Why are these farms important to us? That farms contribute to the beauty and character of Vermont is undeniable. It is also a great part of what makes Vermont attractive to tourists and thus, very important to the economy of our state. Rather than losing this farm land, and the farms into disrepair, our cultural heritage is being preserved along with a way of life, much knowledge, and our food security.

When we buy from local farms, we are investing in our community and economy. At our farm, a full 90 percent of our annual expenses are reinvested in Vermont, paid to our employees, our suppliers and other farms, on repairs performed locally and on service providers. Buying your food locally means keeping money right here in Vermont, where it circulates again.

There are other more personal reasons to buy locally. Local food generally tastes better and is better for you. I know that when I pick up a local tomato, the farmer has chosen the variety for flavor and has picked it ripe. I know that produce from away has been grown for qualities important to shipping or packing. Taste and my health are not at the top of the list. In order to ship many fruits long distances they must be picked under-ripe. Phytohormones may be used to prevent them from ripening on their journey, and used again to ripen them as they near the produce shelves.

Alas, though scientists have learned how to control this process, they have not yet learned how to maintain good flavor in the process. When you buy ground beef from a local farmer, you buy just that, a cut from the animal that has been selected to be ground into burger. When you buy commodity burger, you may be buying ďmeatĒ scraps that have been washed and treated with ammonia, in order to incorporate very cheap by products. These are just two examples, but many other comparisons will be as stark.

There are many ways to purchase locally of course: buying at farmers markets, buying boxes of meat from a local farmer, selecting local options over others while at the grocery store, ordering the local entree at a restaurant. Joining a CSA may be the most meaningful and effective way to support local agriculture: the farmer can count on membership numbers and produce food knowing how much he will need to grow or harvest on a weekly basis.

CSAs provide the full range of what Vermont has to offer; more and more have year-round shares through storage crops and preserving the summer harvest. Our CSA members will often write to tell me how much they have enjoyed cooking with the many different vegetables offered in the share ó about 60 varieties over the course of a 17-week share. One member with numerous health problems wrote that after being part of the share for more than a year, her doctor told her health had improved remarkably. The doctor attributed the changes to diet, but also to the range of vegetables this woman had been eating. Eating locally is certainly not boring or an exercise in deprivation.

Amy Skelton is the CSA and business manager of Peteís Greens, an organic produce farm in Craftsbury. She lives in Waterbury with her husband and three children.